


Impossible Things

by mischiefmanager



Category: IT - Stephen King, IT Chapter Two - Fandom
Genre: Dimensional Shenanigans Are Afoot, Humor, M/M, No smut yet BUT WE GETTING THERE BITCH, Post-Canon Fix-It, Reddie/Some Goddamn Peace and Happiness, Very Little Angst All Things Considered, dumb idiots in love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2020-10-18 06:11:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 9,121
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20634404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mischiefmanager/pseuds/mischiefmanager
Summary: “What the fuck,”he mutters, trying his key one more time. His therapist always says he’s too quick to jump right to the doom and gloom. Maybe he didn’t get evicted all of a sudden. Maybe he just put the key in upside down or… Nope. His key straight up does not work.And then suddenly the door swings open and Richie whacks him in the shoulder with a frying pan.





	1. Chapter 1

August 7, 2013 was the worst day of Eddie Kaspbrak’s life. He got dumped on a breakfast date by this guy he was kind of  very into at the time, he totaled his brand-new Dodge Dart...by hitting a cop car, spilling iced coffee all over himself in the process. And that was just before work.

When he got to work, he was informed by fucking  _ Claudia  _ of all people that his favorite patient  _ who was supposed to make a full fucking recovery  _ had died during the overnight shift. He spent the rest of the day completing paperwork for his now-deceased buddy over in 44G, and playing a  super fun game ferreting information back and forth between one of the endocrinologists--who was on a cruise with almost no reception--and her crazy bitch of a patient who  _ insisted _ that Dr. Google told her she could cure her diabetes with a combination of like six essential oils and lemon juice. And also fighting over the phone with Marcus from Geico. Fuck Marcus from Geico  _ and  _ his manager Suzanne.

Anyway, yeah, that day was fucking nothing compared to this Saturday, when he went back to his shitty ass hometown, watched the first guy he ever loved die in his arms and then wiggled out the back door of a collapsing house containing all his childhood friends.

He’s pretty sure he hasn’t completely processed the awfulness of the whole thing yet. He’s done a decent amount of crying, but like… God, where to even begin? There’s literally no one alive who he can talk to about what he went through. The idea of keeping all this shit to himself for the rest of his life makes him want to consider pulling a Stan. Not that he ever would, actually. Because he’s a stubborn bitch, and when life tells him to go fuck himself, he usually just yells it right back.

Also he got stabbed in the fucking face by Henry Goddamn Bowers. And like, Ben did a decent job patching it up with gauze and superglue, but Eddie hauled ass to Urgent Care and got some actual stitches once he realized there was nothing else he could do at Neibolt. He’d been a fucking mess...like, crying and shit, but even in that state he could tell that the standard of care at Derry Clinic was subpar at best and he kept having to correct the NP who was sewing him up until she finally snapped and asked if he’d rather just do it himself. Actually, he normally  _ would _ have preferred to, but his hands had been shaking too badly. He definitely plans to have it looked at by Dr. Lim, who will for sure know the best way to keep scarring to a minimum, as soon as he’s back at work.

Also, he was hoping that all the weird shit that had been going down with Pennywise and stuff would have fucking  _ stopped  _ after they killed It, but when he got back to the Derry Townhouse and went to get his shit from his room, there were three goddamn suitcases in there and he couldn’t figure out why. The first one had enough crap in it for like a three week trip, although the clothes weren’t all his. Also, the second one was filled with a bunch of pill bottles with his name on them for prescriptions Eddie has never needed, and his  _ actual  _ medication, amitriptyline, was  _ not  _ among them. But to be totally honest, by that point, he was so fucking tired and upset that he just kind of went _ fuck it _ and hauled everything into the back of a cab and got the fuck out of there.

And now he’s standing on the curb at LAX waiting for an Uber to take him back to his apartment in West Hollywood, where he can cry in private and maybe eat a pint of frozen yogurt from Whole Foods. Greek yogurt, of course, for the probiotics.

The first thing that strikes him as amiss back in LA is when he gets up to his apartment and there is a mat that says WELCOME TO THE SHITSHOW on it that he definitely did not buy in front of his apartment and his list of instructions for delivery men has been taken off his door.

_ Then  _ he tries to open the door and his key doesn’t fit, which makes  _ no  _ fucking sense at all, unless Ms. Slavkin changed the locks while he was gone, which would be super illegal and also mean. Like, they’re on good terms, he thinks, especially since she barely speaks English and he knows exactly no Russian. They’ve never had a problem, though. His rent is always paid up on time. She brought him vatrushka two weeks ago and he referred her grandson for a volunteer position at Cedars Sinai over the summer. They’re good.

_ “What the fuck,” _ he mutters, trying his key one more time. His therapist always says he’s too quick to jump right to the doom and gloom. Maybe he didn’t get evicted all of a sudden. Maybe he just put the key in upside down or… Nope. His key straight up does not work.

And then suddenly the door swings open and Richie whacks him in the shoulder with a frying pan.

_ “Ow! _ What the hell?”

Literally everything about what just happened is impossible though, because Richie is:

  1. Dead. He died in Eddie’s arms under the Neibolt house less than 48 hours ago after telling him he fucked his mom one last time for good measure. Like...even while he was bleeding out he couldn’t… God. Anyway…
  2. A resident of Illinois, last time Eddie checked. He even said some shit the other day about security at O'Hare. That’s… that’s the one in Chicago, right? It’s not LAX, Eddie knows that for sure.

Richie looks about as dumbfounded as Eddie feels. He does not apologize for hitting Eddie with a frying pan, although it’s not exactly cast iron. At best, it’s aluminum.

Which is another weird thing. Eddie uses exclusively cast iron or enamel cookware in his apartment because he’s not some kind of idiot sauteing his veggies in perfluorinated chemicals. The frying pan Richie is holding right now is undoubtedly riddled with BPA that would seep into his food and cause thyroid problems.

And honestly the only reason he’s probably getting hung up on that is that he expects Richie to disappear as soon as he blinks, because what the fuck would he actually be doing here. It’s going to hurt a lot more than that frying pan did when he evaporates, and Eddie’s going to feel like he lost him a second time.

Any second now.

Nothing else happens though, except that Richie manages to squeak out, “Eddie?”

And it’s corny to think, but it’s his voice that leaves no doubt in Eddie’s mind that it’s really him. Because Richie Tozier can sound like almost anybody in the world, but there’s no one that can sound like Richie. Even Pennywise never tried to imitate him. Because no one can. That, Eddie is sure of.

Dead is… Eddie is a nurse, and he’s no stranger to death. Richie was dead. No one could survive that kind of blood loss. But that also doesn’t change the fact that Richie is standing in front of him, in his apartment somehow, alive and breathing and miraculously free of giant holes in his chest. Also, this past weekend has had Eddie really rethinking his personal beliefs on what is and isn’t possible.

“Oh god, Richie—” Eddie reaches out and places a hand on Richie’s chest. Richie doesn’t stop him, but he also doesn’t react other than staring at Eddie’s hand, like he’s still unconvinced that Eddie is really Eddie.

Also he’s apparently speechless for the first time in his life.

“What the fuck,” he breathes out. His heartbeat is pounding beneath Eddie’s fingers. “I… we had to leave you. God, I tried to—”

“What?” Eddie interrupts him.  _ “You  _ died. Right in my arms, like, right in front of my fucking face and then you all got sucked into that pit and I—”

“What? No. Wh--wait. Wait wait wait. How did you find my apartment?” Richie demands.

“Uh, excuse me, this is  _ my—” _

But Eddie doesn’t finish that sentence because at that moment he looks past Richie into the living room and his point dies on the tip of his tongue. This is  _ not  _ his apartment. The doormat wasn’t lying. This is some kind of bachelor pad nightmare. One sofa, no art on the walls, a TV that’s too big for the room. Eddie glances up at the number on the door. Seven. It’s the right number, the outside of the place looks right… 

“What did you do to my house?!” Eddie cries, because  _ of course  _ he’s happy Richie is alive—too happy to even process it properly—but he’s not going to pretend he won’t be pissed if Richie donated all of his good Pottery Barn furniture.

“Your— _ I  _ live here, dipshit,” says Richie, apparently kind of snapping out of it. “I’ve lived here for like ten years.”

“You told me you lived in Chicago and—”

“Yeah,” says Richie. “Well, like kind of. I have an apartment there, usually sublet it. Didn’t think I needed to get into my whole real estate history, cause it’s not like we had bigger things to worry about.”

“Just—”

“You know what?” says Richie. “Just fucking come in. Let’s...can you call Mike?”

“Mike isn’t dead either?!” Eddie cries. What--How--

“Of course not,” says Richie. “I mean he  _ better  _ not be, I’ve been texting him all day.”

Eddie takes his phone out of his pocket and goes to his recent call history. He taps on the Derry number that called him the other day, back in another fucking  _ lifetime,  _ while rolling his suitcase into this like sham of an apartment that apparently  _ Richie  _ lives in. 

_ We’re sorry, your call cannot be completed as dialed… _

“You try Mike,” Eddie says, shaking his head. “My phone says his number is disconnected.”

Richie is texting furiously. He sinks down into the couch.

“Does that thing have like bed bugs?” Eddie asks, because the couch looks kind of suspect if he’s being honest. Like the kind of thing Richie might have dragged in off the sidewalk.

Richie makes a face. “No, what the fuck, of course not.”

Eddie sits down next to him on the edge of his seat, still not entirely convinced about the bed bug situation.

“I’m gonna FaceTime Mike, cause…” Richie shakes his head. “Fuck, I don’t know. Mike’s the crazy bitch with all the answers, right?”

Richie then does something kind of un-Richie-ish. He turns to the side and drops his head on Eddie’s shoulder, inhaling shakily and deeply. It’s then that Eddie notices his coffee table is littered with tissues.

“What?” Eddie asks him. He gets the distinct impression that Richie is about to cry, maybe, which is terrifying. And that’s stupid because Eddie works in a goddamn hospital. He deals with crying people every day. But there’s something about being around Richie that just… He feels like they’ve fallen back into the dynamic they had when they were kids. And teenage Eddie wouldn’t have known how to deal with Richie crying and so adult Eddie is kind of panicking over the thought of trying to figure that shit out on the fly.

If Richie starts crying, Eddie probably will too. This situation is… Honestly, it’s super overwhelming. He doesn’t feel equipped to deal with this fuckery.

Just then though, Mike picks up. Like a flash, Richie lifts his head up off Eddie’s shoulder and shoots Mike a shit-eating grin.

“Explain this shit, Mikey,” he says, and turns the screen to face Eddie.

Mike immediately drops his phone.


	2. Chapter 2

An hour later they’ve moved to Skype, all their living friends in boxes on Richie’s laptop screen. Bev is talking over Bill. Ben is sitting right next to her, on the same screen, just staring. Probably at Eddie, but there’s really no way of telling. And Mike is flipping through the pages of a huge stack of notes. He’s been silent for twenty minutes.

From what Eddie has gathered, they all got out of the house and left his dead body inside, which is fine with him because he kinda did the same thing to Richie. Somehow. And then they all went to the quarry and jumped in.

“That’s extremely unsanitary,” Eddie says immediately. “I can’t believe we swam in there as kids, that water is fucking full of bacteria.”

“I knew it! I knew you’d say that,” says Bev, smiling and resting her head on Ben’s shoulder. She sighs. “You’re really here.”

“Wh-What I don’t understand,” says Bill, “why did you come to LA? You told us you lived in New York.”

“What? No,” says Eddie. “I lived there when I was in like my late teens and then moved out and never looked back. I mean, nothing against New York except that’s where my mom was. But I haven’t lived there since I was eighteen.”

“That can’t be right,” Mike chimes in without looking up from his notes. “When I called you, you were definitely in Manhattan. I have both your home and cell numbers; both are 212 area codes.”

“Uh, no,” Eddie whips out his phone, brandishing it in front of the screen. “This is a 323 number. I’ve lived in West Hollywood for like twenty years now.”

“What about your _wife?”_ Richie asks. Sulky, like an sullen kid.

Eddie bursts out laughing because honestly? That’s fucking hilarious. “Funny, Rich. Real funny,” he says.

No one else laughs.

“What’s funny?” asks Ben. “You told us you… What was her name? Myrtle?”

“Myra. She looks exactly like your mom,” says Richie. “Totally your type.”

“Okay, first of all fuck you Richie, that’s disgusting,” Eddie shakes his head. “Also, remember how I’m gay? Like a hundred percent gay. I literally moved here because I wanted to be around more gay guys. I haven’t so much as kissed a girl since I was sixteen.”

No one looks more shocked about this than Richie, which is crazy because Eddie has not been trying to hide it. In fact, he purposely brought it up at Jade of the Orient because as soon as Richie walked in the room he remembered that he used to be super in love with that guy. How does Richie not remember? They spent the whole rest of the evening flirting...or at least it was flirting on Eddie’s part. Maybe it wasn’t on Richie’s.

“Oh hey, me too,” Mike chimes in, almost absently. “Also I think I found something. This is going to sound weird, but--”

“Oh no, not weird!” says Richie. “This weekend has been so normal.”

“We can handle weird,” Ben adds. “Clearly.”

“Alright,” says Mike. He looks up into their faces. “So I think there was a parallel dimension--”

“A _what now?”_ Eddie says.

“I told you it was weird,” Mike shrugs. “So I think what happened was that… remember when we tried to kill It the first time? Back when we were kids.”

“I do now. Vividly,” says Eddie.

“I think we created a rift. You know, like a dimensional split. And then when we killed It again… I think maybe the dimensions merged back together. Or maybe one of them collapsed. Anyway, whatever happened to the other one… I think you got spit into this dimension, Eddie.”

“I’m sorry, did the Shokopiwah tell you about all this shit too?” asks Richie. “Or did you learn this from Doctor Strange comics?”

“I’ve been studying the metaphysical for 27 years,” says Mike, pulling a book out of his pile and ignoring the sarcasm. “Shit gets weird. Much weirder than this.”

“So like, when Eddie died…” Bill starts.

“That Eddie is really gone,” Ben nods, like none of this seems that crazy to him. Ben never seems to have trouble accepting this shit, he was really fucking easy to convince to stay in Derry. “This Eddie… he’s the Eddie we knew as kids, but not the same Eddie we met up with this weekend?”

“Exactly,” says Mike.

“Are you still a goddamn risk analyst?” Richie demands.

“What the fuck is that?” Eddie asks.

“A career invented before fun,” says Richie. “A real snoregasm.”

“So you’re not a risk analyst?” asks Bill, who looks real confused, like he’s having a hard time following what’s going on. “What do you do?”

“Did you guys even _know_ me as a kid?” Eddie cries. “What do you fucking think I am?”

“I knew it!” says Bev, pointing at the screen. “Didn’t I tell you guys he was a doctor?”

“Ohhh! You did say that,” says Bill.

“Too much goddamn school,” says Eddie. “But I went to nursing school like right out of college. I was a pre-med major. I’ve literally been a nurse my entire adult life. I never even seriously considered anything else. That risk analyst shit sounds fucking ridiculous.”

“Hey, listen,” Bill says, almost like he’s snapping out of a haze. “Richie, can you text me your address? I’m in Sherman Oaks, I can be there in like twenty minutes. I just… I want to see you, Eddie.”

“I want to see you too,” says Eddie, because he does. So badly. It feels really good to just say it and not worry about how it sounds. “I want to see all of you. Last time I saw you… I don’t think anyone but me made it out in the other dimension, or whatever it is, Mikey. I think you all died.”

Richie grabs his hand and squeezes it. Whether he’s trying to be reassuring or convince himself that this is really happening, Eddie isn’t sure.

“I’ll be right there.” Bill logs off. 

Beverly suddenly sits up straight in her seat. She sets the glass of wine she’s been holding on the table.

“No one who dies in Derry ever really dies…” she whispers.

“What?” Ben turns to face her. His arm is around her shoulders.

“When I went to my old apartment,” she says, “I… It was disguised as this old woman, Mrs. Kersh. She told me that _no one who dies in Derry ever really dies._ It didn’t make any sense then, but maybe…”

“I’m gonna have to do some more research,” says Mike. “I have to--”

“Mikey, no,” says Ben. “Get out of there. It’s enough. You’ve been killing yourself in that God forsaken town for twenty--”

“I did, I did, I swear!” says Mike. “I’m in an Airbnb in Boston. Look.” He pans his camera around. Very cute, very tasteful. Unlike Richie’s dump.

Eddie thinks about Mike, about him sitting alone in Derry with no one who really understood. Living above the library. Taking care of them from afar for almost three decades. Mike has done so much for them; he essentially sacrificed any dreams he might have had, his entire youth… Eddie remembers young Mike, fresh faced and handsome, daydreaming about Florida. And he gave all of that up. For them.

“I don’t need to know what happened, Mike,” Eddie says. “I’ll just. I guess I’ll just pick up from where Other Eddie left off. You’re all here. That’s enough for me.”

“We’ll come out to LA too,” says Bev, hand on Ben’s arm. “Soon, I promise. We… Things are a little complicated right now, but--”

“Complicated how?” Richie asks. He’s still holding Eddie’s hand. “I thought you two drove off into the sunset and are now fucking happily ever after.”

“Yeah, well… I mean, we are. Happy. Very happy,” says Ben. “But…” He glances sideways at Beverly. She smiles.

“I don’t have secrets from any of you,” she says. “My husband--my ex-husband. Tom. I filed for a protective order for the time being. Hopefully it’ll be granted. We have a hearing soon, but it’s a long process. I had him served with divorce papers this morning. My lawyer told us it’d probably be best for me to stay out of state for now, nowhere he might be able to track me down.”

“So where are you?” Eddie asks. He’d seen bruises on her arms when she’d shown up in Derry and he feels really bad for not connecting the dots before now. He guesses he’s probably forgiven because it’s not like there was nothing else going on, but still. What kind of shitty friend doesn’t say something about obvious belt bruising?

“Cape Cod,” says Ben, beaming. “My beach house. Tom doesn’t know about me yet, so we’re good.”

“Jesus Ben, you have a beach house on Cape Cod?” says Richie. “How fucking loaded are you?”

“Ben, you totally don’t have to answer that,” Eddie interjects, but Ben laughs.

“Well, it’s a good thing we don’t have to worry too much about money,” says Bev, “because I’m not going to fight Tom for Rogan and Marsh. He can just have it. I love designing, but it’s time for a fresh start. Who knows? Maybe I’ll start my own line.”

It turns out, as Bev explains, that although she was the one with a real passion for design _and a goddamn fine arts degree,_ Tom really ended up taking total creative control of Rogan and Marsh. Eddie doesn’t know very much about fashion, but he thinks he has a pretty good idea of what Bev means when she says that Tom decided they’d focus exclusively on clothing with “clean lines and modern silhouettes.” Boring, safe, will sell well amongst wealthy white mommy bloggers.

Eddie remembers what Bev used to wear when they were young. She had unique taste. Whimsical, a little edgy. It seemed like she had maybe six or seven pieces of clothing in total, but somehow an endless variety of interesting outfits. It’s kind of fucked up that she ended up churning out like, Ann Taylor separates instead of getting to put her talents to real use.

“Speaking of um, separations,” Mike says, “Eddie, sorry. You _do_ have a wife.”

“There’s literally no way,” Eddie says, shaking his head. “I don’t care what dimension or whatever, no way I was straight.”

“No one said _that,”_ says Richie. “Just that you were stupid enough to marry a woman anyway. I Facebook stalked her when we were back in Derry.” Why…?

Richie lets go of Eddie’s hand to pull up Facebook on his phone and types in _Myra Kaspbrak_ and then…

“Oh...my god. I married my mother.”

“Yeah, ya did,” says Richie, nodding. “I kept saying I wanted to fuck your mom but apparently not as much as you did.”

Myra’s Facebook page is not exactly a fountain of useful information, although she is an active Young Living essential oils distributor so she’s clearly a fan of multi-level marketing schemes and junk science, which is a red flag to say in the least.

And sure enough… Married to Edward Kaspbrak. There he is. There’s even a wedding picture with an extremely wide and extremely fake grin plastered on his face. Big yikes.

“Well, I have a great divorce lawyer if you need one,” says Bev.

“Yeah,” says Eddie, scrolling past some posts Myra made in a Homeowners Association group about neighborhood paint color regulations. “Yeah, Bev, can you send me that number?”

What a dumpster fire. It’s so bad he can’t even look away. She hits like every facet of human unpleasantness. Like just a giant ball of traits that Eddie can’t stand. Sanctimoniously Christian. Way too concerned about other people’s decorating schemes. Chronic vagueposting. Belief that you can prevent cancer with lemon juice in water. Minion memes.

How is he even going to go about dumping this lady? He knows nothing about their relationship except that it _had_ to have been a farce. 

How fucking deep in the closet was he? Because if Mike got it right and he’s the same person existing in two different dimensions—which is crazy as shit, although in fairness his bar for crazy shit has been raised pretty fucking high in the last three days—his gay ass was somehow fucking this woman of his own free will.

“What am I even going to tell her?” he wonders aloud.

“Oh _that’s _easy,” says Richie cheerfully. “Hey Myra, I met up with my friends from middle school and remembered that I’m gay. We’re getting divorced.”

The further Eddie scrolls down her Facebook, the less concerned he is about hurting her feelings, to the point where when she misquotes Marilyn Monroe with that _if you can’t handle me at my worst, you don’t deserve me at my best _bullshit, he decides then and there that Richie’s suggestion is good enough.

“I have her number, Eddie, if you want to call her,” says Mike.

“Yeah,” says Eddie. “I guess I’m gonna have to. But not tonight, it’s too late. Tomorrow.”

There’s a knock at the door.

“Also, uh,” says Richie, “are we not going to talk about the fact that both Eddie and Mike are gay?” He cranes his neck toward the door. “Hey Bill!” he shouts. “You gay too, man?”

“Am I _what?”_ Bill calls back. Eddie rolls his eyes, then gets up to open the door for Bill.

Bill has his arms around Eddie before he even has a chance to take a breath. He buries his face in Eddie’s shoulder.

Richie blinks at them. “I said _are you gay?” _

Bill doesn’t even look up. “No, I’m bi. I did a whole exposé about it last year in _Vanity Fair,_ it was at like all the grocery stores in the country. Why do you ask?”

“Because I think we’re all turning into the Village People.” says Richie. “I call Randy Jones.”

“You would,” says Eddie, hugging Bill back just as fiercely. That was… That means Richie is gay too, right? Or bi or something. He didn’t say it exactly like that but he also didn’t exclude himself from the group. Luckily, Bill gets up the courage to pry before Eddie can overthink it too much.

“Wait so I think I missed something,” he says. “Eddie said he was gay earlier, I’m bi…”

“I’m gay,” Mike pipes up.

“Oh really?” says Bill, disentangling himself from Eddie and looking very extremely interested all of a sudden. “I didn’t know that.”

“I just,” Mike chuckles, “I just kind of felt like we had bigger things to worry about at the time.”

Bill sits on the couch and looks like he’s about to answer, a smile at the corners of his mouth, when Richie butts in by elbowing him in the side.

“Well shit man,” Richie says. “I wish we’d all just started up that dinner by stating our names and who we like to fuck. I spent the whole time fucking terrified someone was going to figure out… Ben, Bev? You got anything to tell us?”

Eddie really wishes he would’ve finished that sentence. Even though like, realistically, he knows what’s coming. Richie likes men. Whether exclusively men or men and others… he has a chance.

“I got nothing,” says Ben with a shrug. “Sorry guys. I’m straight. Bev?”

“I’m bi too, actually,” says Beverly. Ben looks surprised for a split second and then kisses her on the cheek. She smiles at him. “This is the first time I’ve ever said it out loud though. My ex-husband… He-- Let’s just say he wouldn’t have been supportive.”

“Wow,” says Richie. “He sounds like a _dick.”_

“So does Eddie’s wife,” says Bev.

“Eugh.” Eddie grimaces. “Please don’t call her that. _I_ didn’t marry her. And I’m going to un-marry her as soon as possible.”

Bill’s phone buzzes. He pulls it out and winces, types a reply.

“Uh oh,” says Richie. “Someone’s sleeping on the couch tonight.”

“I’m guessing your wife wasn’t too happy with you for just taking off, was she?” asks Mike.

“Actually,” says Bill, rubbing the back of his neck, “she was less mad about that and more about how I told her I was moving out as soon as I got back.”

“Oh wait, what?” says Eddie, turning to face him. “You too?”

“Boy do I know the club for you, Bill,” says Richie. “Maybe your lawyer will start giving you a discount for referrals, Bev.”

Eddie smacks him on the arm. “Fuck you, bro.” Richie grins even wider. 

Bill sighs. “I just… I mean, can any of you imagine being married to someone that doesn’t know what you did this past weekend? Who’s never going to understand or even believe you?”

“Absolutely not,” says Eddie.

“But seriously,” Richie adds, “wouldn’t it be funny if you like all had the same divorce lawyer? You could have alimony brunches and shit.”

“I don’t think I really need a lawyer,” says Bill, shaking his head. “We had a pretty airtight prenup. She doesn’t need my money or anything, and I’d obviously give her whatever if she did. It’s not her fault she doesn’t… Anyway, yeah. I don’t really want to go home. Even though I really should keep packing.”

“Well,” says Richie, “as the French day, _mi futon es su futon—”_

Eddie can’t help himself. “Pretty sure no one says that—”

“Really?” Bill’s face lights up. “Thanks, Rich. I could get a hotel or something but… I don’t know. I don’t feel like being alone right now.”

“I feel that,” says Mike, nodding. 

Bev’s head drops to Ben’s shoulder. “And as much as I hate to get off the phone,” he says, “I think we’re falling asleep over here. Would it be weird to just like stay on Skype until we all fall asleep?”

“I don’t know, is it weird that all I can think about is the next time I get to see all of you?” asks Bill.

“Is it weird that I feel like puking right now listening to you guys?” asks Richie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> bear with me here, i promise shipping stuff will happen soon!


	3. Chapter 3

The Skype session ends with more back and forth than a _no, you hang up first _teenage phone call, during which Richie makes gagging noises until it’s just the three of them. Richie, Bill and Eddie. Like how it was at the beginning of that summer, except there’s a giant metaphorical chasm where Stanley should be. Eddie’s not sure he’s ever missed him more.

“You’re sure it’s okay if I crash here?” Bill asks Richie finally.

“Yeah, of course. Any time, man.”

Eddie is the first one to notice an issue with this arrangement. 

“Not that I don’t want you here, Bill,” says Eddie, “because I do, very much, but where am I going to sleep? This is—was _my_ apartment.”

Richie freezes for just a second before grinning. “Fine, fine Eds, no need to beg. You can bunk with me.”

“Oh, thank you,” says Eddie, rolling his eyes. “Your generosity? Overwhelming. Clearly you planned this out really well.”

Richie just grins and walks backward toward the hallway. Eddie bids Bill goodnight with another long hug.

Richie beckons Eddie toward the hallway and he follows him into the bedroom. He’s got a queen sized bed, which is fine, but only two pillows. Eddie points this out.

“So? There’s two of us. One pillow each.” He shrugs.

“Are you some kind of animal?” Eddie asks. “What do you do when you have people over? How do you only have two pillows? I bet you snore too.”

“If it’s so fucking important to you, just take ‘em both and I’ll grab a couch cushion or something,” says Richie.

Richie ends up with a balled-up throw for a pillow, which he doesn’t seem too concerned with. Eddie digs through his suitcase and finds pajamas. Just a plain white shirt and some soft striped pants. The clothes, while he didn’t pick them, are mostly things he probably _would’ve_ picked. They feel like they belong to him when he puts them on.

He laughs when he opens the toiletry bag because absolutely nothing is like his usual stuff except the toothbrush, which is the exact same make and model as his old one. He even has a waterpik. Regardless of the dimension, Eddie is still apparently all about oral hygiene. 

Once they get in bed… Eddie doesn’t know exactly what shifted between them since the couch, but the atmosphere is entirely different. Sleepy, thick, full of something he can’t quite put his finger on. It’s like being on a first date, almost. Except this is_ Richie,_ they know each other, maybe better than anyone, and it’s not a date. They lay on their sides under the covers, facing each other. Closer than Eddie thought he would have dared.

“So Eds,” says Richie, his voice low. “You like guys, huh?”

“Oh yeah,” says Eddie. “Big time.”

Richie waggles his eyebrows. “If you like ‘em so much, why dontcha marry ‘em?”

Eddie reaches out and socks him lightly on the shoulder. “Bitch, I might,” he says, “if I met the right type of guy.”

“What’s the right type? What gets the old inhaler pumping, huh?”

Eddie answers him immediately. “Idiots. Just like...the most stupid guys. Guys who can’t keep their fuckin’ mouths shut. The kind of guys my mom would’ve hated.”

Richie’s laughter is quiet and genuine. 

Eddie continues as though this were a serious question that he’s given a lot of thought to. “And glasses--I like my guys blind, so like they won’t notice if I’ve gained a few new gray hairs since I last saw them.”

Richie snorts.

“Seriously though?” says Eddie, after a moment of just looking at Richie, taking in the fact that they’re lying in bed together and they’re safe and they’re _here. _“I don’t even know what my type is. I feel like… I dunno, I feel like I’ve just kinda been like, waiting.”

“Whatcha waiting for?” Richie asks, eyes bright but also heavy lidded. Sleepy, but hypnotized by the _something _going on between them. Even though Eddie hadn’t thought about Richie in almost three decades before this past weekend, it feels as though he’s been pining for him his whole life.

“I don’t know, asshole,” says Eddie, summoning all his bravery, “maybe waiting for you to finally fucking kiss me?”

Richie’s eyes widen and he leans in so fast Eddie doesn’t have time to take a breath, but the moment their lips touch… Oh God. They’ve done this before.

It comes back in such a rush. Eddie gasps into Richie’s mouth and holds him tighter instinctively. _Like he used to. _

Well, not _all the time_ or anything. It actually only happened once, right before Eddie moved. They were in his room, which was empty except for the two of them, and his mom was hollering at him from the car to _hurry up Eddie-bear, the moving van has already left._ And Eddie had been talking very fast about maybe visiting during Christmas break and next summer. He’d felt like if he stopped talking for even a second he’d start crying and never stop. The look in Richie’s eyes was something he’d never seen before, desperate and wild. Like he might just grab Eddie’s hand and pull him into the woods to hide, just so that they wouldn’t be separated. He didn’t do anything like that though, he just stood there and went _oh yeah, for sure, of course you’ll visit. _

Then Eddie had run out of words to say, and they were almost out of time. Any minute his mom would start honking. And because he couldn’t think of anything else to do, he’d grabbed Richie by his stupid palm tree shirt and kissed him as hard as he could.

It was probably a bad kiss, looking back on it now. Definitely a first for both of them. Eddie couldn’t tell if the tears on his cheeks had belonged to him or Richie, or maybe both of them. Richie had kissed him back, had mumbled _please._ Please what? Please kiss me more? Please don’t move? Please don’t forget me?

Eddie had forgotten the kiss by the time they crossed over the state line. He wouldn’t have even recognized Richie by the following week.

And the agony of that memory melts away now, as he fits his lips against Richie’s and pulls him tighter. However they got here, whatever fucked up and impossible things happened to put them here… God, there’s absolutely nowhere he would rather be.

Richie pulls back for a second, one hand resting on Eddie’s cheek, right under his stitches. “Wait,” he says. “We did this before.” His face is so close Eddie can feel his breath on his lips.

“Yeah,” Eddie breathes. “Yeah, yeah we did. Just once.”

“Fuck,” Richie replies. “We were so stupid.”

“Yeah,” Eddie laughs.

“We should’ve just fucking run away,” says Richie.

“Where?”

“Anywhere. Here.” Eddie doesn’t point out any of the obvious problems that come along with running away with some guy you’re in love with at like fourteen. Richie kisses Eddie’s nose. His forehead. His cheek. His chin. He kisses him softly on the lips once more.

“Here’s pretty good,” Eddie admits, nose to nose with Richie. “Although your sheets fucking _suck_ man, what’s the thread count on these?”

Richie yanks one of Eddie’s pillows out from under his head and whacks him with it. “I was trying to be romantic, you little shit,” he says.

“On your Target Dorm Essentials sheets?” Eddie giggles.

“Target, pfft,” says Richie, “these are the finest sheets Ross Dress For Less can provide.”

“You have a goddamn comedy tour,” Eddie tells him. “Why are you buying your linens at fucking Ross?! If I’m going to actually sleep here for like, more than one night, we have to get better sheets.”

Richie snorts and lets his head fall back onto his wadded up blanket.

“And more pillows, Jesus Christ, Richie.”

“Oh my god,” Richie laughs. “I forgot how fuckin’ fussy you are.”

_“Fussy?!”_

“Yeah,” says Richie. “Like you’re as bad as my grandma. What’ll you want next? A bed skirt?”

“What the fuck did linens ever do to hurt you,” says Eddie, giggling and pulling the comforter up under his chin because there is no top sheet. Just a comforter that smells like Richie hasn’t washed it since college—which would normally be _such_ a turn-off—and Eddie thinks it’s a testament to the way he feels about Richie that he’d rather sleep in this shitty frat boy bed than any other bed in the world.


	4. Chapter 4

Eddie wakes up in the morning because there is something hot and loud in bed with him. It’s only when he shoves the sweaty, snoring lump onto its side that he remembers he’s in bed with Richie. Eddie usually has no trouble getting all worked up over Richie being annoying, but the euphoria of being in bed with him takes over and he snuggles up behind him, wrapping his legs around him like a koala.

“Mmm,” says Richie. His hand finds Eddie’s. Eddie nuzzles his nose into Richie’s hair and inhales, deep.

There’s a sweet, summery smell lingering to him. Like when they used to stay up playing Clue and eating rocket pops. Richie was so bad at Clue, or maybe he just let Eddie win because he liked how Eddie got all up in his face during the game, and how he always did a little victory dance at the end. Either way, they always ended up laughing and sitting outside in the backyard, watching the fireflies and arguing over stupid stuff. Those were perfect nights. Derry at its best.

Because despite all the shit they went through, there are parts of his childhood that Eddie wouldn’t trade for anything. _Especially this part_, he thinks as his fingers trail up to touch the scruff of Richie’s stubble. He lets the fingers of his other hand sneak under the hem of Richie’s shirt and reach up to rub his chest.

“If you’re trying to turn me on man, keep going,” Richie mutters. “It’s working.”

“What if I am?” Eddie asks. He scoots even closer, pressing his whole body against Richie’s back.

Richie sucks in a deep breath. Eddie’s pretty impressed; he’s never managed to get someone so clearly hot with just like, his fully clothed, half hard dick on their back and a couple light touches.

Eddie brings his lips close to Richie’s ear and then remembers he has something important to tell him. 

“I think you might have mild to moderate sleep apnea,” he whispers. “Your snoring is next fucking level.”

Richie doesn’t miss a beat. “You snore too.”

“No I don’t.”

“You do. You absolutely do.”

“I would know if I sn—hey!”

Richie suddenly flips and leans over Eddie, a hand on either side of his face. “You snore _and_ you talk.”

“Yeah, I know I talk but I don’t—”

Richie leans down and kisses him. Eddie decides that arguing about snoring is a lot less interesting than kissing, regardless of who is right (Eddie), so he lets it go and kisses back. Richie shifts his body so he’s on top of Eddie, and with a rush of shivery excitement Eddie realizes he’s not the only one who’s half hard already.

“Oh,” says Richie, lifting his head as Eddie rocks up into him. “Wow.”

“Yeah wow,” Eddie whispers. He slips a hand between them and starts to loosen the drawstring on Richie’s pajama bottoms.

“Really?” Richie whispers, eyes wide, looking down between them. _What the fuck?_ Has he like never… Well, that’d be some funny shit, if it turned out Richie, who claimed he’d had sex at age twelve, was literally the forty-year-old virgin.

“Oh yeah,” says Eddie smiling, pulling the knot free. Richie exhales, shaky, and his dick twitches against Eddie’s thigh. 

Eddie’s fingers dip beneath the waistband of Richie’s boxers, he feels hot skin, coarse hair—and Richie is kissing him again, his tongue in Eddie’s mouth and—

There’s a knock on the door.

“Hey, guys?” Fuck. It’s Bill. 

Richie stops kissing Eddie and sucks in a breath. He lifts his head.

“What?” he calls toward the door, not especially nicely.

“We’re out of toilet paper. I mean, I used the last of it,” says Bill, “but like the next person who has to go won’t have any.”

“You have a fucking car, right?” Richie calls back. “Can’t you just go to 7-Eleven or something?”

“Well yeah,” says Bill, “but then I was thinking…”

_Oh my god,_ Richie mouths at Eddie. He rolls off and covers up with the blanket, just in time because Bill has evidently decided to just come on in.

Bill leans in the open doorway and continues talking. Eddie tries to look like he just woke up and wasn’t about to get fucked.

“...was going through your fridge and you don’t really have anything, I only found beer, not even good beer either, like--”

Eddie’s stomach takes the opportunity to growl audibly. Richie turns to face him and blinks.

“Guess we’re all going out to breakfast,” he says in a super fake cheery voice, and then under his breath _“not like we had anything better to do, huh?”_

Grabbing breakfast at The Waffle with Bill and Richie is so much fun that Eddie almost forgets to be annoyed with Bill for cockblocking them earlier. The only thing putting a damper on the mood is the looming dread of the phone call he has to make when they get home. Myra might be the personification of unpleasantness—at least going by her Facebook profile—but Eddie still feels pretty bad that she lost her husband.

Eddie thinks of it as her husband dying because he is _not_ her husband. He may be the poor sucker who has to deal with the fallout of the end of her marriage, but that’s about as far as he’s willing to get involved. Richie brings up the point that they might want to check on his bank account situation before he calls her because she might try to like max out their cards or some shit when he dumps her.

So they get home and Eddie discovers that...holy shit! Other Eddie left his laptop in one of the suitcases! Luckily, facial recognition works so he doesn’t have to figure out what the fuck he might’ve used as a password, and uh… Eddie still doesn’t really understand what a risk analyst is, but it sure as shit pays better than a nurse does. He has _money. _Investments. Savings. Stocks. A 401k. A guy who is in charge of keeping track of all of it. The whole shebang. 

Apparently some of the money is in an account which Myra does not have access to, and honestly it’s _plenty _for him to live on for quite awhile, so there’s basically nothing else he needs to do. He can just call her. He’s just gotta _do it._ Bill goes to take a shower because he says he just had this discussion with his wife and doesn’t want to hear it again, which, fair. So Eddie steels himself, grabs himself a glass of water and—oh what the actual fuck?

It’s the first time Eddie has actually gone into the kitchen and Bill was _not kidding._ There’s fucking nothing in there worth saving. It’s basically empty except like two cheap pots and the frying pan Richie hit him with yesterday, a fridge with only beer in it, and a cupboard containing one jar of peanut butter and five boxes of Kraft Easy Mac. The garbage is overflowing with takeout containers and Postmates receipts.

“How are you still alive?” Eddie calls out to Richie, filling a mug with tap water.

“I thought we went over this yesterday,” Richie answers, “I don’t fucking know, I still don’t really understand what—oh, wait, you’re talking about the kitchen. Uh, I’m gonna go with _luck.”_

“Didn’t anyone ever teach you how to cook?” Eddie asks, yanking open the cupboards in the desperate hope that at least he owns a few spices. Nope. Nothing.

“Hey, I can make a mean grilled cheese,” says Richie, like he’s _insulted,_ like making a grilled cheese is _cooking._

“When was the last time you ate a fucking vegetable?”

“Don’t worry, _dad,”_ says Richie. “We can go shopping later for your kale soup or whatever you think I should be eating.” He hands Eddie his own cell phone. “Stop stalling. Dump your wife.”

Eddie shakes his head. “I have a great recipe for kale soup, actually,” he says, dialing Myra’s number. “Kale soup and white beans.”

“Oh my fucking god,” Richie mutters, leaning up against the doorway, and it would seem mean except for the ridiculous grin on his face and the way he tilts his head at Eddie, like Eddie hung the goddamn moon and Richie’s just grateful to be basking in his glory. It’s hard to say whether he’s exasperated over the idea of having to eat like a fucking adult for once or if he just can’t believe Eddie’s going to be making dinner for--

“Hello?”

As soon as he hears her voice, he realizes it. Her! _This _lady! This is the crazy bitch he spent all day trying to convince she needed Metformin back in 2013! He knew the doctor he’d been dealing with had a practice on the east coast and that this was one of her patients from out of town, but never in a million years would he have connected it. Well, at least he’s already used to arguing with her. 

Still, it’s _not_ a fun conversation. He starts it like, _Hi Myra, it’s Eddie,_ and then she screams and cries and tells him to come home _immediately,_ which is when he has to be like,_ yeah well, here’s the thing though…_

He paces the length of the kitchen at least a hundred times over the course of the conversation, and Richie just stands there watching him and grinning and winking at him occasionally. Just the sound of this woman’s voice gives him a tension headache. No wonder Other Eddie was on so many meds. She even _sounds_ like his mom.

She asks so many questions that just...don’t matter anymore. _Whose number is this you’re calling from? Why isn’t your phone on? How come when I called Derry PD they said you’d left?_ And this is _after_ he was like, _this marriage thing isn’t going to work out because you’re a woman and I’m a gay man. _She didn’t seem to focus on that as much as he’d have expected. She doesn’t ask any questions about the gay part, which Eddie thinks is what she should really have been focusing on. It’s almost as if she maybe kind of knew, deep down or something, and just figured it didn’t matter? She seems more annoyed about the fact that he’s bringing it up _at all,_ which Eddie thinks is pretty goddamn insulting and decent enough evidence that she doesn’t actually give a shit about his happiness. 

She brings up the idea of _getting him help _and _couples counseling._ That’s the point where he stops trying to answer her questions and just talks over her. Loud, and then even louder.

“--SO MY LAWYER WILL BE GETTING IN TOUCH WITH YOU, AND I THINK IT’S BEST IF ALL COMMUNICATION GOES THROUGH HER FROM NOW ON, OKAY? OKAY, BYE-BYE.”

He hangs up and hands Richie’s phone back with a groan. “Ugh, that was… Well, it was like almost in the top twenty most unpleasant things I’ve done this week. Probably.”

Richie sticks his phone in his back pocket and walks toward Eddie, crowding him against the counter.

“Sooo… is it too early to ask if you’re ready to date again?” he asks, placing his hands on Eddie’s hips.

Eddie pretends to think about it while draping his arms over Richie’s shoulders. “Depends who’s asking.”

“What if he’s like a _real _hot guy?”

Eddie peers over Richie’s shoulder. “Really? A hot guy? Where?!”

Richie throws his head back and laughs, which exposes his neck, which Eddie then cannot help but kiss because _come on, _it’s just right there and… Apparently Richie is a fan of neck kisses because he makes a noise in the back of his throat before leaning down to kiss him on the mouth. And it’s _good,_ like Richie is a _good_ kisser, which is something Eddie’s not sure he really expected. Well, either he’s crazy talented or maybe Eddie just wants him badly enough that he seems that way. Could be either. Could be both.

It seems kind of like...drunk-college-kids dumb of them to be totally making the fuck out in the kitchen, backed up against the counter, but Eddie feels _at least _as giddy as he did the first time he did this like twenty years ago at an actual college party while he was drunk. Somehow, it’s even better stone-cold sober in the late morning. Richie’s hands wander down, get a tight grip under each of Eddie’s thighs, and Eddie hops up so he’s perched on the edge of the counter. They’re basically eye to eye this way.

Eddie opens his legs up as best he can in these jeans and Richie crowds forward in between them. Eddie pushes so their jeans are zipper to zipper. Even the sound of Bill’s terrible shower singing—_I’ve forgotten what I’ve started fighting fooooor_—doesn’t permeate this sexy little bubble they’ve got going in the middle of Richie’s terrible kitchen. Although Eddie does spare one single thought for Bill’s song choice because… did Bill actually sit his entire ass down and _watch Glee?_ Or is he just kind of a basic bro with basic bro taste in songs?

That train of thought doesn’t last long. One of Richie’s hands slips around Eddie’s back and under his t-shirt as they kiss, which somehow feels a lot dirtier than it actually is. Eddie has a tight grip on the collar of Richie’s button down, and as he leans into Richie’s mouth, he slowly starts to undo the buttons. The little grunt Richie makes into his mouth in response is absolutely thrilling; he pulls Richie even closer with his heels dug in Richie’s ass, chest to chest. It’s harder to unbutton his shirt this way, but Eddie can’t bear to be even an inch away from him right now. They’ve spent too much time apart already.

The water in the shower shuts off. Bill’s singing is suddenly all he can hear or think about. _Just a small town girl…_

“Okay,” Eddie whispers to Richie, who has stopped kissing him and exhaled through his nose like a fucking bull ready to charge, “do you think Bill watched _Glee?_ Or is this just like...does he just only listen to stuff from before 1985?”

“Are you telling me _you _watched _Glee?”_ Richie asks.

“Are you telling me you_ didn’t?”_

Before Richie can reply, Bill calls, “Hey Rich? Do you have guest towels or anything? I only see this green one...”

Richie’s body is still nestled snugly within Eddie’s legs. “No,” he shouts back. “I wipe my ass with that. Have fun.” He takes his warm hands out from under Eddie’s shirt and runs them through his hair, taking a step back. Eddie tries not to grin at the obvious erection straining at his jeans.

“We can’t keep doing this,” Richie says.

For a moment, Eddie’s heart drops into his stomach. How many “straight” guys have said… It must show on his face because Richie immediately goes:

“What? Oh God, not like,” Richie grabs his hands. “Not like that. Like… Bill. We can’t keep getting cockblocked by Bill like this.”

The laugh Eddie barks out is interrupted by Bill walking into the kitchen in just a towel.

“What’s happening, guys?” he says, leaning up against the door frame. “What are we doing next?”

“I dunno man, we were just enjoying the free concert,” says Richie, letting go of Eddie’s hands and leaning up against the counter next to him. Eddie notices bitterly that the erection he’d been so looking forward to enjoying is completely gone.

“Oops, sorry about that,” says Bill with a sheepish grin. “Forgot people were listening. My wife usually wasn’t home when I showered so I’m used to an empty house.”

The silence that follows is uncomfortable to say in the least. Eddie felt like a real asshole for dumping the wife he never even met; he can’t even imagine how Bill must be feeling right now. He had to leave someone he actually loved, at least to some extent. It must be a million times worse. Which gives him an idea.

“You guys want to go out and get super drunk?”


End file.
